Lagardère Announces 2011 Full Year Revenues

By Press Release

Lagardère SCA announced 2011 full year revenues today, noting that the divisions demonstrated resilience despite a difficult economic environment. Highlights of the company's financial performance are as follows:

At Lagardère: Lagardère’s net sales for 2011 were €7,657m, a 3.9% drop on a reported basis but stable on a like-for-like basis at +0.2% (the difference between reported and like-for-like is due mainly to consolidation, with the company’s sale of their international magazine business). The Group’s new areas of development – eBooks, entertainment, travel retail, sports rights management – maintained their growth trend.

At Hachette Livre: Lagardère’s global publishing division delivered net sales of €2,038m in 2011, down by 5.9% as reported and by 4.4% on a like-for-like basis. France saw strong sales in Education (+2.4%) and General Literature (+2.4%) in 2011, and Spain’s performance was up 1.1% for the year due to Education sales. In English-speaking countries, the rise of the eBook and problems for significant accounts (bankruptcy of Borders in the US and REDgroup in Australia), were key factors. EBook sales grew steadily in 2011 in the US and UK, with fourth quarter eBook sales accounting for 20% and 10%, respectively, of Adult Trade at the end of the year. In 2011 e-books accounted for 6% of Lagardère Publishing's total net sales.

At Hachette Book Group: Digital growth continues at HBG, with net sales from digital products – eBooks plus downloadable audio – totaling 22% of overall revenue in 2011 (compared with 8% in 2010), 130% increase over the prior year. HBG had 62 titles hit the /New York Times/ eBook bestseller chart in 2011. On the print side of the list HBG had 182 /New York Times/ bestsellers last year, beating the company’s record of 155 set in 2010. An impressive 37 HBG titles reached #1 slot in 2011. Key HBG titles driving sales in 2011 include */The Sixth Man/* by David Baldacci/, *Bossypants* /by Tina Fey, */Every Day A Friday /*by Joel Osteen,/ *Kill Alex Cross */by James Patterson, */10th Anniversary/* by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, and */The Best of Me/*/ /by Nicholas Sparks.